Civil Society Groups Deny Writing US over Kyari

*Alleges impersonation

A coalition of civil society organisations, Monday, vehemently denied writing the United States government over Russian crude price cap.
The coalition stated that some groups on a mission of impersonation, petitioned the U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) through its United States, Embassy.
It said the petition titled “Persons of interest in the violation of the coalition-agreed price cap on Russian crude” was against the GCEO of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited, Mr Mele Kyari and the Chief Executive Officer of Matrix Energy group, Abdulkabir Adisa Aliu.
It said one NGO named “The Concerned Citizens on Economic Reform Nigeria, signed by two persons namely, Comrade Tijani Ibrahim as Convener and Amb. Fatima Abubakar as Secretary wrote the petition.
At a media briefing in Abuja, the groups, Social, Political, Economic, Educational and Environmental Rights Initiative (SPEEERI), Initiative for Leadership and Economic Watch, Civil Society Group for Good Governance and the Restore Nigeria Initiative, said it was shocked that “the office address listed on the group letterhead belongs to us and the name used by the group was also twisted to look like one of our own.
“The name of the convener also happens to be assumed to be one of us since we have such a name in our coalition”.
The coalition represented by Comrade Jacob Okpanachi Comrade Splendour Agbonkpolor and Chief Dominic Ogakwu said: “we have gathered you here to denounce the letter written to the US government and to state categorically clear that we were impersonated by those who wrote it.
“For the records, the NGO who wrote it in disguise of one of ours is not registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission. Secondly, the two phone numbers used in their letterhead do not exist anywhere but created out of their memories”.
It stated that “the address listed there as Suite B5, 3rd Floor, Danville Plaza, No 5, David Ejoor Crescent, Abuja is currently unoccupied. We all occupied various sections of Danville Plaza for over ten years as NGOs but last year December, the owner of the place sold it and we all moved to new place.
“Even while we used the plaza as our office, there was nothing like B5 and it was never numbered that way. As we speak, the place is currently unoccupied and totally empty.
“We, therefore, wonder who will use a non-registered NGO to write to a country like the USA from a non-existing address, in order to make it look like our work as former occupants of the place”.